


The Dianoetic Virtues

by Pseudothyrum



Category: Fargo (2014)
Genre: Gen, Mostly Dialogue, Riddles, flippant discussion of deep philosophical questions, paradoxes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 21:19:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1956498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pseudothyrum/pseuds/Pseudothyrum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During the year they spend working in the file room, they have to find something to talk about</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Dianoetic Virtues

**Author's Note:**

> For you, darling. Without you the everything wouldn't be everything.

_i. The Cat_

Pepper trudges for what feels like the millionth time down the endless hallway to the file room (it feels like the millionth, but he knows it isn’t, he knows it’s the ninety-eighth time, but somehow that doesn’t make it easier at all). He walks down the same featureless hallway towards the same featureless door, which today has the unique feature of his partner standing outside, staring at it in serious contemplation. He stops and stares at Budge for a long moment, unacknowledged, before slowly reaching towards the handle of the door. Budge slaps his hand away, eyes never once leaving the door’s stubbornly uninteresting surface. 

“If you open that door, you’ll ruin it,” he says. 

“Ruin our day? Because I hate to tell you this, but that’s going to happen whether we open the door or not.” 

“No,” his partner replies distractedly, “I’m thinking about cats.” 

“Did you let a cat loose in there? I don’t know if there’s anywhere worse than the file room they can send us, but I’m pretty sure they’ll try.” 

“No, I’m thinking about Schrödinger’s cat, you know? Like, if we don’t open the door, is the file room still there?” Pepper stares at his partner for a long, silent moment. 

“That is the stupidest thing you have ever said to me,” His partner finally looks at him, brow furrowed. 

“No it isn’t. I’ve definitely said stupider things. Anyways, how do you know the room is or isn’t there? We can’t know unless the door is open. It’s both, it exists and it doesn’t exist.” 

“Did you do something to destroy the room, did you leave a bomb in there that might have destroyed all the files?” 

“Of course not,” 

“And do we have any reason to believe that the room is actually a single quantum particle or wave?”

“... No.”

“Well then,” He swings the door open to find the file room still there, still solidly present, resolutely existing despite half-remembered physics lessons and fervent wishes. 

“You take all the fun out of everything.”

_ii. The Gun_

Pepper is picking the pickles off of his sandwich for the third time in as many weeks. Each time his partner offers to go and pick up some lunch on Thursday (meatloaf day, the most abhorrent of all the days), he writes out his whole order, carefully underlining the “no pickles” clause. And each time, his partner returns with a sub covered in pickles. He is beginning to suspect a conspiracy of some sort. 

“You shouldn’t take those pickles off of your sandwich,” Budge says, watching him from the other side of the aisle, happily eating the free-range, organic, gluten-free whatever that he keeps insisting is the height of culinary achievement. 

“Pickles are disgusting,” he says, throwing a slice at Budge; it misses, and adheres to the metal of one of the shelves instead. 

“And yet you keep getting them.”

“I keep getting them because _somebody_ keeps ordering them for me. Even though I hate them. Even though I keep saying that I don’t want pickles.” 

“No, it’s because you are _meant_ to eat pickles. The first time, I made sure to not ask for pickles for you, but the pickles were there anyways. Clearly something or somebody wants you to eat those pickles. You are predestined to eat those pickles. They are like the Chekov’s gun of your life. They were introduced as an incidental detail in the first act, and now they have to go off.”

“So you keep getting me pickles because fate has ordained it that I have to eat pickles.” 

“Exactly. That detail wouldn’t have been introduced to the story of your life if they weren’t going to be important later.” 

“Well that would be a very fascinating idea,” Pepper says, piling all of the pickles onto one corner of the Subway wrapper “if we were living in a play or a movie or something. But we’re not.”

“Right, but imagine if we were. Imagine if you only ever got those pickles and we only ever talked about them because they were eventually going to become relevant in our lives. It’s like free will is meaningless. If you only ever mention a pickle because eventually you have to eat it, then everything is predetermined, and you were always going to die in the manner that you eventually die. Do you see?” 

“If everything’s so preordained, then why don’t you try fighting it? Stop ordering pickles, maybe you’ll save the universe or whatever.” 

“You can’t fight fate, man. Those pickles are your destiny.” 

Pepper throws another slice of pickle at Budge, and doesn’t bother to hide his laugh when it sticks to the side of his face. 

_iii. The Hanging_

“So there’s this prisoner, right?” Pepper doesn’t bother to look up or acknowledge that his partner has spoken, “And the judge sentences him to be hanged. The judge tells the prisoner that he’s going to be hanged someday during the upcoming week, Monday to Friday, but that it’s going to be a surprise to him when he gets executed.” 

“Why would the judge need to surprise the prisoner with his hanging, is this like the world’s shittiest surprise party or something?”

“No, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that for his sentence to be carried out, the prisoner has to be surprised by the date of his hanging.”

“See, that sort of stipulation is just begging for trouble. What if the prisoner just claims that he isn’t surprised, they’d have to call the whole thing off.” 

“Well, that’s sort of what he does. See, he reasons that he can’t be executed on a Friday, because if he has lasted until Friday then he can’t be surprised, since Friday is the last possible day. So he won’t be executed on a Friday. And if Friday’s ruled out, then he can’t be executed on a Thursday either, because that is the new last possible day. So he does this with all the days, and he goes to his cell secure in the knowledge that he isn’t going to get executed at all.” 

“That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about.” 

“But wait, see, the next week, the executioner comes for the prisoner on a Wednesday and, having reasoned that he wouldn’t be executed at all, the prisoner is surprised, and he is hanged,” Budge looks at him as if this is supposed to be some big, meaningful revelation. 

“Well that just seems mean,” Pepper replies instead, “why would they torture the poor man like that?” 

“That’s not what you’re supposed to be focusing on, you’re supposed to be focusing on the paradox of having certain knowledge about a future event, or on how the judge’s statement is inherently contradictory, or something."

“Yeah, I have a real problem with that judge as well,” Pepper says, very resolutely not playing along, “there’s no way they’re going to let a judge exercise that sort of tyranny over the administration of justice, he’d be disbarred so fast.”  

His partner lets out a low, long-suffering sigh, and Pepper enjoys the silence. 

_iv. The Bridges_

“Want to hear something cool?” 

“No,” Pepper says absently, not looking up from the file he is flicking through. 

“Okay, so there are seven bridges in the city of Königsberg,” Budge ignores Pepper’s pointed sigh, “and you have to cross each bridge but you can only cross each bridge once, and you have to end up in the same place that you started.” 

“Surely it would be easier to save yourself the effort of crossing all those bridges and just stay where you are.” 

“That’s not the point, the point is figuring out what combination of bridges to take to get back to where you are.” 

“My answer is none. None bridges.” 

“No, that’s not--” Budge stops, frustrated, and Pepper grins, “that’s not how it works. I mean, that is sort of the answer, but you didn’t do it right.”

“What, the answer is none? That’s a stupid riddle, that doesn’t even make sense.” 

“No, the answer is that it’s insoluble. There is no solution, it’s impossible to cross all seven bridges only once and end up back where you started.” 

“Well that’s some bullshit right there. Why would you tell me a riddle that’s impossible to solve, what is even the point of that?” 

“That’s the thing. Sometimes there isn’t an answer, sometimes the question is meaningless and searching for the answer is futile, sometimes the answer is that there is no answer at all. Sometimes life just isn’t wrapped up all nice and neat with a pretty little bow,”

They stare at each other for a long moment, their silent reverie broken when the pickle slice, which had calcified and hardened at some point after adhering to the shelf, falls suddenly into Pepper’s open file. 

“Well shit,” says Budge, “that’s just spooky.”

_v. The Prisoners_

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk. 

The ball thuds dully against the wall, little bits of paint flying away at each strike. Pepper can feel the ball similarly chipping away at his sanity, even as far down the row of stacks from where his partner is sitting as he is. He is seriously considering taking an early lunch just to escape the noise when the bouncing suddenly stops. He pokes his head around the nearest shelf to see his partner has vanished suddenly from his seat.

“Do you want to hear a riddle?” Budge asks, hovering just over Pepper’s left shoulder.

“Sweet Jesus!” he says, nearly falling over in surprise.

“See, there’s these four prisoners, right,” Budge continues, heedless of Pepper’s glare, “and the jailer gives each one a hat. There are two blue hats and two red hats, and the jailer says that if any one prisoner can guess what colour hat he is wearing, they can all go free. But if the prisoner guesses wrong, then they all get executed.” 

“What sort of prison is this, who lets a jailer make these sorts of arbitrary decisions?”

“ _So,_ ” Budge continues primly, studiously ignoring him, “each prisoner can see the hat of the person in front of them, but not their own, obviously, or the one behind. The fourth guy is sent to a room by himself so nobody can see him and he can’t see anybody, and none of them are allowed to speak to one another. So, how do they solve the puzzle?” 

“Do they ask for a lawyer and sue the jailer for cruel and unusual punishment?” 

“No, this riddle takes place in a universe where this is a normal thing.” 

“Same universe as the surprise hanging guy, I’m assuming.” 

“That’s not important, what’s important is the hats. Think about the hats.” 

“Does the fourth guy, who has been left alone in a room by himself, just take off his own hat and answer?” 

“They’re all handcuffed.” 

“Do they guess wrong and hope that they get sent to the surprise hanging guy?”

“You are really bad at this.” 

“Okay, uh,” he pauses for a long, tense moment of serious contemplation, “the middle guy guesses it.” 

“That’s... yeah, actually. How did you know?” 

“Oh, I’ve heard it before,” he grins broadly, and Budge throws his hands up in despair and stalks away down the aisle to take up his customary chair, muttering along the way about time-wasters and ruined fun.

Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.


End file.
